The demographic transition of ageing influences currently all European societies, changing the health status of the population (WHO, 2017). The European social and health systems and education are inadequately anticipating these challenges, as they cannot react fast enough to provide prevention and adequate promotion of health: health care is often provided by various specialists, service lacking alignment and integration, leading to increasing costs and lower accessibility of health care. Therefore, there is an urgent need to address challenges related to the governance of ageing societies (Priority #1), which calls for deliberate and foresighted innovation of educational, social and health care environments that equip and prepare its professionals with capacities focusing on prevention, health and wellbeing using evidence-based practices (Priorities #2 and #3). The aim of the SIENHA project is to support Healthy Ageing among European countries through the competence development of social and health care professionals, in order to: - Increase understanding on healthy ageing as a lifetime process requiring increased attention at all phases of life (from childhood to old age); - Transform understanding and support continuous development of competences of students, teachers and professionals to foster Healthy Ageing across Europe; - Support the exchange of knowledge across Europe to learn from the best practices in higher education to develop Healthy Ageing; - Increase citizens' knowledge and individuals’ involvement in supporting personal health and healthy ageing; Number and profile of participants: Seven higher education institutions (HEIs) across Europe conform the SIENHA consortium. Partners were selected to the project based on: (1) regional outreach to ensure that results are sensitive to the cultural, socioeconomic and demographic reality; (2) strategic focus in healthy ageing, health promotion and development of education and research on the topics at national and international levels; (3) willingness to foster policy development and transfer of results to other levels of education and the working life; (4) expertise in developing interdisciplinary social and health care education through international collaboration and modern pedagogies. Partner institutions include: 1. Universitat Ramon Llull, ES 2. Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, PT 3. Santa Casa Da Misericordia De Lisboa, PL 4. Kolegji Heimerer, KO 5. Stichting Hogeschool Utrecht, NL 6. Hochschule Für Gesundheit, DE 7. JAMK University of Applied Sciences, FI Description of activities The activities used to achieve the objectives of the project include 4 Intellectual Outputs: 1) Framework of competences in Healthy Ageing 2) HA curriculum in Healthy Ageing 3) Innovation and research Toolkit in Healthy Ageing 4) Handbook in Healthy Ageing Three Multiplier Events in the format of workshops and symposiums and foreseen to present the different perspectives on healthy ageing and the results of the different outputs. To test SIENHA’s results and to initiate dissemination and to promote sustainability, SIENHA will implement 3 TTLA activities to pilot parts of the developed HA curriculum and courses and the pedagogical strategies, held in Portugal, Poland and Germany. To monitor and adjust the development of the above activities, seven transnational meetings will also be held. Methodology: models of co-creation and co-construction and validation, as well as stakeholder involvement will be a priority at every step of the project, following a Citizen Science approach. Results and impact envisaged: 1) A framework that establishes key healthy ageing (HA) competencies to be achieved by several health and social professionals, along with the content and pedagogical guides that ensure its completion; 2) HA curriculum (EQF level 7) to qualify and optimize health and social services professionals competences; 3) A Toolkit of innovative and research strategies, as well as priority lines and methods for educational and scientific development in healthy ageing; 4) A Handbook that summarizes contents of the key project results to be usable by all partner HEIs, target groups and end users; 5) A compendia of pedagogical strategies and methods to stimulate the 4th Industrial Revolution competences: "learnability", critical and fast thinking, emergent decision making, creativity, entrepreneurial skills, co-creation and empathy on professionals; 6) Advocacy and increase of the awareness and understanding of new models for healthy ageing in professionals, end users and stakeholders; 7) A strategic network of sharing best experiences on the concept and actions for healthy ageing, sustainable society and influencing decision making. The project aims to impact higher education quality, health-care services, decision-makers, policies and service providers and the public through developed knowledge, competences and outcomes developed on healthy ageing (HA).
The aim of the SIENHA project is: to transform the Health-care and social Systems to foster healthy ageing across the lifespan (horizontal priority); through the development of a high-profile educational framework that provides high quality skills and competences for future health and social professionals, supporting transdisciplinary innovation and creative partnerships that strengthen the role of higher education regionally (sectoral priority 2) ensuring that education and research are mutually reinforcing, thus incentivising and rewarding good teaching (Sectoral priority 1).
Because ageing is one of the greatest challenges we have to deal with in the next two decades, our strategy needs to be smart and sustainable. Educational institutes (HEIs) insufficiently provide the necessary skills and competencies that are necessary to facilitate the needed cultural paradigm shift towards healthy ageing or innovation projects. Current professionals do not have the competencies to develop prevention programs that focus on the self-management and use of the capacities of people and communities that foster well-being in a healthy living environment and across the lifespan. This demands a different mindset, skills and competencies in user-orientation, inter- and trans-disciplinary work and social innovation tied with knowledge of research methods. In addition to addressing the challenges and skill gaps regarding social and health care professionals especially within the European Union, the SIENHA consortium wanted to bring together higher HEIs with strong expertise in the area of health, healthy ageing and health promotion to create a strong impact and sustainable results. Geographic diversity among partners was also leveraged to enhance knowledge sharing and foster ongoing collaboration in healthy aging.